Happy Friday and welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon compendium of Puck’s best new reporting. Today, we lead with Matt Belloni’s insider update on the latest turmoil surrounding Michael, the long-gestating Michael Jackson biopic that’s been plagued by legal setbacks, script rewrites, and necessary reshoots. With the film’s release date having already been pushed back twice, and producers now considering splitting the film into two parts, insiders are starting to wonder whether Michael will ever see the light of day… Plus, below the fold: Julia Ioffe examines how a group of MAGA-aligned former diplomats are trying to remake the State Department. John Ourand breaks down Amazon’s NASCAR experiment—and what it signals about Bezos’s live sports ambitions. And exclusively for Inner Circle members, Lauren Sherman and Bill Cohan trade notes on whether Saks Global is too big to fail. Meanwhile, on the pods: Dylan Byers and Julia Alexander dissect Disney’s Cocomelon acquisition on The Grill Room. On The Town, Matt and comedian John Mulaney dig into his unique late-night Netflix show. On Impolitic, John Heilemann rings up embattled D.N.C. vice chair David Hogg to discuss his controversial tenure. And on The Powers That Be, Eriq Gardner joins Leigh Ann Caldwell to examine Trump’s latest push to redefine the limits of executive authority.

HOLLYWOOD

International distribution is up in the air as Michael faces a legal setback, rewrites, and reshoots. But the real problem is that nobody seems to have any idea what the heck the movie is actually going to be, or even if it’s going to be released as a single movie at all. Read Now

WASHINGTON

Inside the Ben Franklin Fellowship’s efforts to restore the foreign service to a mythical meritocracy of yore, when the watchwords were “pale, male, and Yale,” and women weren’t getting so many dang promotions. Read Now

SPORTS

Amazon streamed its first NASCAR race over the weekend, drawing fewer, but more youthful, viewers than last year. Is this just a speed bump on the way to comprehensive live sports streaming? As one TV exec said, “Look, the fact is, there’s still a big moat between streaming and broadcast.” Read Now

FASHION

As Saks Global’s June interest payment closes in, I spoke with former M&A banker Bill Cohan about the red flags flying on Wall Street, whether Saks should pay their creditors on time, and if a restructuring is inevitable. Read Now

MEDIA

Julia Alexander reunites with Dylan to break down a pair of media industry fascinations: whether Disney’s strategic acquisition of Cocomelon can help the business get its groove back in the preschool content space, and what YouTube’s brazen poaching of Disney’s Justin Connolly signals about its live sports ambitions. Listen Now

HOLLYWOOD

Live from Hollywood, Matt is joined by comedian John Mulaney to talk about his experience writing for the SNL 50th anniversary special and what he thinks will happen to the show moving forward. He also discusses how he managed to get away with his unique late-night show on Netflix, how he deals with executive notes, learning from his sitcom, and whether he’d ever return to scripted comedy. Listen Now

WASHINGTON

John is joined by Parkland survivor, gun control activist, and embattled D.N.C. vice chair David Hogg to discuss his controversial tenure and what his party needs to do to fix itself. Hogg explains the rationale behind his plan to spend $20 million through his Leaders We Deserve PAC to elect younger candidates who embrace a combative, anti-MAGA stance; why that plan includes backing primary challenges to ossified, ineffective Democratic incumbents; and the ensuing rage among much of his party’s establishment, which he sees as fueling a campaign to oust him from his D.N.C. role and “destroy” his reputation. Listen Now

WASHINGTON

Eriq Gardner joins guest host Leigh Ann Caldwell to dig into the latest legal challenge to Trump’s attempt to reshape the federal workforce—this time involving the firing of Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights. As Eriq notes, the case could redefine the limits of executive authority, with major implications for the separation of powers, the future of government independence, and even artificial intelligence. Listen Now

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